PG product glut

[zaarin7]

I'm just glad to see Burning Tigers coming up though I figure since I'm a legacy buyer from the pre-order days it will be 2014-2015 before I see it. And the naval game will probably be 15 years from the order date before I see that.

[Hugmenot]

Larry, what are your guesses at what the next four games will be?

I ordered all 4 PG games last night but with somewhat mixed feelings. Conquest of Ethiopia and Burning Tigers were two easy picks for me, but the two upcoming Infantry Attacks games would have taken priority over An Army at Dawn and Korean War: Pussan Perimeter if I had very strong reason to believe the two IA games would be released in the next six to nine months. Not a slight on the designers; just that I prefer IA when I am craving planned attacks.

[larry marak]

The next four games for winter production have been announced to gold clubbers, 2 GWAS, 1 SWWAS, and one PRE GWAS :-). If they are released as quickly as Mike wants them to be, then Jim will probably end up like Mozart, worked to death.

And this doesn't even include scenario books for several of the Avalanche system games, which are in various stages of work.

[stear]

Hi Larry,

Yes, "winter" had better mean Feb/March. If not I may retire.

All,

I am curious about the strategy here... is Mike giving up completely on distributor orders, and planning on an APL that lives off short production runs of many different new titles? If so, I question if that is viable in the long run; the strain on the design / development / testing folks is probably high already (although PG has 2-4 active designers)?

On the other hand... perhaps this is a short-term plan, to enable and accelerate shipment of the remaining old PG / other game pre-orders. I'm assuming the cost to ship two games, even overseas, is not much different than the cost to ship one, so maybe the hope with the PG bounty is, most folks with with a remaining Kursk (one or both volumes) will buy a new game or two, and take the sting out of the effective loss on making good on the pre-order... and then once the pre-orders are cleared, perhaps the new product pace will settle down.

Anyone local to Mike have any sharable insights?

-Jim

[vince hughes]

James,

I can tell you that buying from APL when living abroad is not really cheaper buying in bulk. I'm not going to say how much the postage was on 6 box-sets recently ordered, but its not kind (and nobody's fault either). It is very expensive.

If distributors don't get them, I can't see APL selling that much abroad. I'm not sure for example how long I would be able to sustain buying straight from The States.

One thing 'glut' sales do help with is the GC membership. If only one or two items are coming out per year, then GC simply is not worth it from this distance. But with a large number of products, it makes the discounts very attractive to off-set the postage.

[Shad]

If he abandons distributer sales the MSRP in the AP webstore should go down. They always had games listed for absurd prices because they claimed they had to leave pricing room for distributors. With no more distributors...

But somehow I don't think we're going to see any impact of that!

[campsawyer]

Well, I believe the distributors don't want to have anything to do with APL. My informal survey of stores that still sell true wargames, no one wants to deal with APL. I believe APL's future is with online sales. Let's face it most stores are looking at hosting Warhammer and Magic games as that is what brings people in the door. Miniatures are also making a comeback too, with the computer games that need a more tactile experience than a game controller. Also, a little surprising is I have heard from two store owners that group style games are more popular than the two person games like PG and other wargames. Seems this whole social theme has more appeal.

[stear]

Wow! That sounds kind of bad, to me. Alan, did they indicate if they were also giving heavy but 2-player makers like MMP/ASL and GMT a pass?

-Jim

[campsawyer]

Wow! That sounds kind of bad, to me. Alan, did they indicate if they were also giving heavy but 2-player makers like MMP/ASL and GMT a pass?

-Jim

Yup, ASL especially. They will host a game if people want to play, but it is not on the shelves. I am seeing more Euro games and multi player games with stores and they are selling, two closest stores are going this route. The distributor, The Complet Strategist is a mixed of wargame and the new stuff, but they are in Boston and New York City, so they get a good mix. Best true wargame store is in Groton, Ct. It was call the The Citidel now it is Citidel Game Celler. He has a ton of stuff also does trades and has access to older stuff. He has a handful of older APL, but nothing new per APL policy. He also has a good mix of mini's as well. But the game players are old guys like us. Younger ones are going to the stores that I mentioned before. I have watched some sessions they like the cooperative games much more than you v. me. I think it is good as it will have them get away from computers to actual do something together. But I feel that it will not be good for traditional wargames when it is only us old guys playing them.

Now before Shad jumps it and says he is a young guy, there are exceptions to my observations. It just seems as a whole when I was a youngster there was many more at the game stores for the wargames. But maybe times are just a changin'

[stear]

What about on-line retailers? I always assumed that's where most folks got their games. Much of my post-2000 collection came from Boulder Games (gone now), and some from Noble Knight and Dean's FineGames, and TrollandToad. Isn't there also a big European online outfit (Udo...Grebe?), that stocks most US wargames for the across-the-Atlantic folks?

I rarely bought games from APL, unless it was blowout sale + GC.

There are essentially zero brick/mortar wargame stores within 50 minutes of my area (East Bay / CA), and those within 90 min are still small. Oddly, I found Cambridge, MA, similar to my area, while Houston, TX still has some great stores with many wargames like Nan's.

-Jim